(Read comments) - (Post a new comment)

ardath_rekha
2010-01-17 09:10 am UTC (link)

If it's a fake, it's an extremely well-done and well-researched one. I poked around online for images of Virginia drivers' licenses and learners' permits. There weren't many but they were pretty consistent with how Andy's looks. The listed expiration date was accurate (that blew my mind; they gave him six years to get a drivers' license, wow).

I couldn't do a point-for-point comparison because, while I could find a Virginia driver's license to compare it to, and things were in the same places on both, the only learner's permit I could find was for someone under 18, and it looked very different because it had notations about when the person in question would turn 18 and 21 (so they can't get booze or cigs early, I guess). The only anomaly I spotted was that Andy's permit seemed to be missing the lasered-in images of the state of Virginia, and the word "Virginia," which should have been repeated over and over on the license and covered the picture and text if held at the right angle. But then again, when held at the other right angle, those things go invisible. So I dunno.

As for addresses not existing... Google Maps currently lists a bike path near my home as a street, even though it hasn't been a street since the 1960s. Sometimes, amazingly enough, listings are wrong. So unless she or someone else has physically walked to that location and verified that there's no house there, it could exist.

I'm not saying that it's the real deal, but until someone contacts the Virginia DMV and they verify or deny its existence, none of us can know for sure. And playing Internet Detective for ten minutes is as deep into this as I feel like going, so...

*wanders off to find a buyer for this flatbed-ful of Earth Logic*

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	lady_ganesh 2010-01-17 05:04 pm UTC (link)
	IIRC, the laser images are designed to either not show up or show up as BLACK in a scan/copy, so...I don't know either! And yeah, that's a good point about addresses. Did Virginia have an Enhanced 911 project? I know that was done in some rural areas to standardize things, and a lot of addresses changed then. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	ardath_rekha 2010-01-17 06:40 pm UTC (link)
	The other pictures I'd seen online all showed it... they had subtle goldish overlays of the design. There's a hint of it in one corner of Andy's permit, like a very faded watermark, but that's it. Dunno, though. Sadly, no idea about enhanced 911. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	magnolia_mama 2010-01-17 06:07 pm UTC (link)
	(that blew my mind; they gave him six years to get a drivers' license, wow). I don't think it's so much that he got 6 years to get his DL, but rather that his permit expires when he turns 30. My son's permit (issued by Virginia, but it's got the new design), which he got last December, expires on his 20th birthday. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	ardath_rekha 2010-01-17 06:38 pm UTC (link)
	It apparently expires when the permit-owner hits a five-year-multiple birthdate (20, 25, 30, etc), with a minimum of three years. It took me a ridiculous amount of time to dig that info out yesterday. So the range is 3 to 7 years. But I'm still thinking "if you can't manage to learn to drive in seven years, what possible hope do you have..." and boggling. XD (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	eleutheria 2010-01-17 09:44 pm UTC (link)
	Ah, okay, more than I thought it was. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	rikiki 2010-01-17 11:25 pm UTC (link)
	Seriously. They expire in a year in SC, which will make it a pain if I can't stop choking on the parallel parking before I graduate from uni. (Reply to this)(Parent)

eleutheria
2010-01-17 09:44 pm UTC (link)

I don't know when VA changed, but current VA licenses look nothing like this. Current ones have two pictures, one with watermark, and are a yellowish black-and-white. And have a completely different logo and font. It's possible that they hadn't changed yet in 2007, I'm not sure when they did, but there's no way it would be a currently-issued one. Also, I believe learner's permits are only valid for a short amount of time, so he wouldn't be able to still be driving on a 2007 permit, I think-- no guarantees on this one, but that's how I think it works if memory serves.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

bobgenghiskhan
2010-01-17 10:17 pm UTC (link)

Wanka who actually owns a VA driver's license chiming in- and I had to go all the way to the other room to get it, see how I love you.

My license (and this is a license, not a permit, for what it's worth) looks exactly like the one Turi posted, with the exception that it says "Driver's License" instead of "DL Learner's Permit" at the top. You can't see the gold Virginia overlays if you're looking at it straight on, and I would guess they wouldn't show up in a copy/scan either. My license was issued in December 2008.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	eleutheria 2010-01-18 02:21 am UTC (link)
	I also own a VA driver's license, and my old one looked like the photo Turi posted, but not the new one I got two months ago-- so this must be a really recent change. It's very, very different looking now. I'd be tempted to scan it and black out the name, but yeah, the less seen of that photo the better. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	bobgenghiskhan 2010-01-18 02:49 am UTC (link)
	Yeah, I thought about doing the same thing with mine, but... really, nobody needs to see that. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	magnolia_mama 2010-01-18 03:51 am UTC (link)
	this must be a really recent change According to a Google search, the new design was phased in for new cards last year between March and July. It fits, as I got mine in August and it has the new design. (Reply to this)(Parent)

(Read comments) -